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We
find ourselves in the aftermath of the href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/69645" target="_blank">Second
Great War, the carnage and the
confusion of the routing of Band of Brothers and their vassals from
Delve and Querious. The balance of power has been overturned after
three years of violence. The last spastic tremors of the conflict
reverberate in the galactic north and northeast as the remaining
BoB-aligned forces are besieged, lesser ripples in the wake of a
greater drama.  Increasingly, players are asking themselves:
Now what?



From the perspective of a 0.0 inhabitant, the political and geographic
dislocation is great. Entire power blocs have been destroyed or
rendered irrelevant. Long-standing coalitions have lost their strategic
purpose, not unlike NATO immediately after the fall of the Soviet
Union. Refugees of the losing side have had to evacuate their assets
with haste and withdraw to Empire or to safer locales in 0.0, leaving
many corporations in unfamiliar territory.



Yet, while the Great War captured the imagination of both the players
and the media, only a small proportion of the playerbase directly
participated in it. One might bandy about rough figures of twenty to
thirty thousand participants on either side of the war, yet EVE has
300,000 subscribers. The vast bulk of those pilots live in protected
Empire territories, patrolled by unkillable NPC 'police' and insulated
from the violence of 0.0. Bring up the map with 'pilots in space'
during Euro Prime, and it seems clear that 80% or more of the
population blunders through EVE in Empire, intolerably free of the
threat of violence. The Great War may have thrown the markets of Empire
into disarray on a recurring basis, but the Empire-dwellers themselves
remained effectively untouched. Unacceptable.



Historically, Empire has been an oasis of idyllic space-pacifism.
Pilots mine, run missions and produce with little risk of hostile
activity. On the rare occasion that a corporate war (a formal mechanic
that allows corporations to shoot each other's pilots without police
intervention while in high security space) occurs, conflict is limited
to the participating organizations rather than the population as a
whole. When the Privateer Alliance began experimenting with
cutting-edge gameplay by declaring corporate war on style="font-style: italic;">everyone
- every alliance and every major high-population empire-dwelling
corporation - the result was delightful mass chaos. But because Empire
is where the bulk of CCP's subscription money comes from, the howls of
wounded carebears provoked a patch to drastically limit the scale of
corporate war. Empire was safe once more - until the coming of Jihad.

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In February 2008, much of the coalition was exhausted from the
attrition warfare of the first invasion of Delve. A bored goon found
himself in Empire and marveled at the profusion of untouchable Hulk and
Mackinaw exhumers peacefully gorging themselves on rock and ice in the
asteroid belts.



Empire mining is a financial paradox. The usual considerations of 0.0
ship fitting such as loss-to-income ratios do not apply. In 0.0, ships
are flown with the expectation of violent loss, and pilots suffer
little loss relative to their income when these combat vessels get
turned into scrap. By contrast, the empire-dwelling Hulk pilot uses a
fantastically expensive ship (by Empire standards) to secure a paltry
and tedious but 'absolutely safe' income.  Each of the Hulks
used by the miners cost at least 100 million isk. Adding modules and
rigs into the equation, a single Hulk would require many hours of
intensely boring Empire mining to replace. If somehow these Hulks could
be destroyed, the personal impact for each kill would be catastrophic.



That bored goon was Karttoon. He began to experiment in Misneden, an
Empire system with an ice belt full of oblivious, ruminating Hulks.
Fitting out an Armageddon with disposable modules and insuring it, he
put a mere fifteen million isk at risk. Eyeing a likely target through
his Covops alt, Karttoon warped his battleship to one of the Hulks,
locked it, lit it up with his lasers, and was rewarded with a fiery
explosion. Moments too late for the luckless Hulk pilot, Concord
spawned and destroyed Karttoon's Armageddon. The disbelieving victim
began to spew incoherent rage in the local channel about what happened.
The Jihad was born.



Word spread like wildfire through Goonswarm. This relaxing pasttime was
financially self-sustaining, too.  Fearing no risk, the Empire
dwellers often decked their Hulks out with reckless abandon, while the
suicide ships of the mujahideen cost practically nothing to sacrifice
after insurance. Once the wreck of the victim was looted, aspiring
mujahideen often found they had the funds for many more attacks. But
profit was not the primary motive. The Empire miners reacted to the
mujahideen with a level of raw, impotent outrage not often encountered
in the more worldly areas of 0.0.

wicked01 > a
goonswarm dude blew my hulk up in high sec yesterday

Ser Shondi > O_O

wicked01 > pissed me right off

wicked01 > concord didnt get there on time

?Ser Shondi > i thought killing someone in high sec was pretty
much insta-smite from concorde

Gaiscioch Nova > we have it down to a t

wicked01 > he killed me in seconds i dieed and then concord
showed up just as i popped

wicked01 > you pride yourself on that shit

wicked01 > ?

Gaiscioch Nova > why yes

wicked01 > man i had respect for goons till that moment

Ser Shondi > it is pretty cynical

wicked01 > wheres the skill in that

Ser Shondi > no skill, no honour, just "the lulz"

Gaiscioch Nova > sorry for our lack of e-honour

wicked01 > no your not

wicked01 > you just agreed you take pride in it

Gaiscioch Nova > :v

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In order to exploit the griefing potential of the Jihad technique as
much as possible, an Islamic liberation movement was created, with
Karttoon dubbing himself 'The Sheik.'  Terrorist tactics were
used to defend 'Allah's Sacred Belts:'  The imposing miners
were labeled 'infidels,' the suicide ships were dubbed 'explosive
vests,' and Allah's word was spread with cries of 'Allahu Ackbar!'
whenever a suicide attack was initiated.  The gimmick caught
on, adding insult to the injury of the miners.



Suicide attacks in Empire have existed since the beginning of the game,
but they were limited in scope and primarily motivated by profit.
Pirates have always been willing to sacrifice a battleship on the
approach to a Market Hub to destroy and loot a particularly loaded
hauler. Yet the outbreak of the Jihad across Empire caught the galaxy
by surprise. With the financial impact of the Hulk losses, the victim's
sheer surprise at being assaulted in 'safe' space, and the deliberately
incendiary terrorist gimmick of the Jihadis, the appeal of the Jihad is
self-evident.  Blowing up an armed, expectant enemy in 0.0 was
merely war; the Jihad was raw grief.  For the Swarm, what to
do after the Great War ended was obvious: resume the Jihad.



Since the outbreak of the Jihad, the targeted griefing of Hulks in
Empire has gone viral and expanded far beyond Goonswarm. Despite the
unending cries of protest, the attacks have not stopped. I encourage
everyone to give Jihading a try. Here's a brief guide:

• Buy and platinum insure a
  battleship which you have good damage skills
  with. Armageddons are the classic mujahidin ship, being cheap and
  extremely damaging. The most important attribute is volley damage.




• Fit your ship with named but
  low-quality modules. These tend to be even
  less expensive on the Empire market than tech one mods.




• Fit for maximum damage (4
  damage mods), use short-range weapons, the
  heaviest Gallente drones and a few rounds of faction ammunition. If you
  don't use lasers, you will only get a five or six volleys before being
  destroyed. You need a scrambler, a sensor booster for quick locking,
  and may want to use a passive targeter. Maximize damage while
  minimizing cost of loss.




• Don't bother with any sort
  of survivability mods, as they won't extend
  your ship's life at all. When Concord spawns, your ship will be
  instantly destroyed regardless of hitpoints or tanking levels.




• If you have a covops alt,
  this will make scouting your target and
  scooping their loot after you blow them up much easier. An alt is
  required if you hope to recover your victim's loot after the kill, but
  it doesn't have to cloak. You can also fit a ship scanner on your alt
  to help select a victim who isn't heavily tanked.




• Choose a target system
  between .5 and .7 security; higher than .7 and
  Concord will respond too fast for you to make the kill. Start in .5
  when you begin suiciding so that you have the most room for error as a
  novice.




• Do not engage if Concord has
  already spawned in the location of your
  target.




• Overheat
  your guns, scramble and engage. 




• Use your alt to scoop the
  loot of your victim.




• Sit back, relax, and troll
  your mark in local. You have 15 minutes of
  criminal flag to wait out, so you might as well relish the tears.
  
  

Empire will never be safe again.